In the introductory chapters a brief sketch has been given of the settlement of America. We now approach the important events which belong to the first great American rebellion, which culminated in the Declaration of Independence by the thirteen British American Colonies, and terminated in the recognition of their independence by the parent State. The rebellion had resulted in a revolution, and traitors were made heroes!

33It forms a part of the present undertaking to record some of the facts relative to the steps by which the now powerful United States were, as a whole, ushered into the arena of nations, and by which a large class of Americans, true to their British allegiance, were compelled to leave their native country to found another colony in the northern wilderness. To be justified in rebelling against the constituted authorities there must be the most cogent reasons; to take up arms against the State—​to initiate a civil war, is assuming the most fearful consequences.

To present even a brief account of the circumstances which led to the settlement of Upper Canada, it becomes necessary to dwell for a time upon the great rebellion of 1776, the result of which was adverse to those Americans who adhered to the old flag under which they had been born, had come to the new world, and had prospered; a rebellion which was attended and followed by persecution and violence, imprisonment and confiscation, banishment, and, too often, death; which caused a stream of refugee loyalists to set in toward the wilderness of Canada.

At the time of the rebellion of the English colonists in America, they consisted of thirteen provinces. Massachusetts, with her colony of Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. It may be well to briefly notice these several states, and the part each took in the war for Independence.

The first Englishman to set foot upon the continent of America was John Cabot, who discovered Newfoundland, and probably the adjacent mainland, June 4, 1497. The event is noticed in the Privy Purse expenditure thus: “1497, Aug. 10—​To hym that found the new Isle, £10,” which seems to have been a grant for his services.

In the year 1578, Sir H. Gilbert endeavoured to establish a settlement at the mouth of the Roanoke. Failing in his undertaking, his half brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, made a similar effort the following year, which likewise failed. It was Sir Walter Raleigh who gave the name to Virginia, in honor of Elizabeth, the virgin Queen. A third and successful effort was made to colonize in 1607–8, at Jamestown. This dates the commencement of English colonization of America. Some time later, America was looked upon as a country 34quite beyond the pale of civilization, even as Botany Bay was at a still later period; and in the year 1621, the British Government transported to Virginia 100 convicts. But notwithstanding, “Virginia,” to use the words of Morse’s Geography, “the birth-place of Washington, has given six Presidents to the Union.”

The colony of Virginia was originally indefinite in its boundary; and, judging from old maps, it would seem to have included all of North America. But a map dated 1614 shows the more northern part as New England. The first Governor of Virginia entered upon his duties in 1619.

This State was by no means quick to sever the connection with the mother country. Many of her sons stood up for the crown, and very many families became refugees. Washington said of Virginia, in a letter, that “the people of Virginia will come reluctantly into the idea of independence.” But in time, by the specious representations of Washington and others, the State produced a certain number of rebels. The quota demanded by the rebel congress was 48,522. She supplied, in 1776, 6,181; and afterwards 20,491.

Of the aforementioned colonies, they all had received and had secured to them by charter, from an indulgent mother country, governments of the most liberal nature. Civil and religious liberty were fully enjoyed. Says Mr. Sabine: “Virtually, republican charters; subject only to the appointment of a governor on the part of the Crown. Every colony was, practically, a State within itself; and it is a suggestive fact that the very earliest assertion of legislative superiority on the part of the mother country only operated negatively, by forbidding every colony to make laws repugnant to those of England.”

Certain of the British colonies were, together, called “New England,” and since the Independence they are known as the New England States. They consist of New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, 41Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Maine, which was then a colony of Massachusetts. This region was granted by James I. to the Plymouth Company in 1606. It was called North Virginia, but it was changed some years later, before it was actually settled. It was the people of these States to whom the term “Yankee” was originally applied; and now, in the United States, this epithet is used solely in reference to these States; but in Canada and England the word is applied very generally to all Americans. The origin of the word Yankee is probably traceable to the Indian appellation “Yengee,” for English, or Anglais, after the French.

Contents—​The signers of the Declaration of Independence—​Their nativity—​Injustice of American writers for 80 years—​Cast back mis-statements—​The whigs had been U. E. Loyalists—​Hancock—​Office-seekers—​Malcontents stir up strife—​What the fathers of the Republic fought for—​Rebel committees—​Black mail—​Otis, John Adams, Warren, Washington, Henry, Franklin—​What caused them to rebel—​What the American revolutionary heroes actually were—​Cruelty, during and after the war—​No freedom—​The political mistake of the rebels in alienating the loyalists—​The consequence—​Motives of the loyalists—​False charges—​Conscientious conservatives—​Rebellion not warranted—​Attachment to the old flag—​Loyalists driven away—​Suppressio veri—​Want of noble spirit towards the South—​Effects—​Comparison between loyalists and rebels—​Education—​Religion—​The neutral—​The professions.

Of the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence nine were born in Massachusetts, seven in Virginia, six in Maryland, five in Connecticut, four in New Jersey, four in Pennsylvania, four in South Carolina, three in New York, three in Delaware, two in Rhode Island, one in Maine, three in Ireland, two in England, two in Scotland, and one in Wales. Of these twenty-one were attornies; ten merchants; four physicians; three farmers; one clergyman; one printer; and ten men of fortune.

The seven years’ war between Canada and New England, in which a large number of the Colonists were engaged, had created not a few officers of military worth and talent, while a spirit of strife and contention had been engendered among the people generally. The Colonial war, carried on with so much determination, was stimulated, not so much by the English nation at home as by New Englanders. It was they who were chiefly interested in the 64overthrow of French power in Canada. While money and men had been freely granted by the Imperial Government, the several colonies had also freely contributed. They “furnished in that war quite twenty-eight thousand men, in more than one of the campaigns, and every year to the extent of their ability.” “On the ocean, full twelve thousand seamen were enlisted in the Royal Navy and in the Colonial Privateers.” In this manner had been formed a taste for military life, which waited to be gratified, or sought for food. When, therefore, the unsavory acts of England wounded the Colonial vanity, and demagogues traversed the country to embitter the feelings of the mass against the king, the hot-headed were not slow to advise an appeal to arms. At the same time, the loyal in heart, the conservators of Imperial interest, viewing with wonder and alarm the manifestation of fratricidal war—​of rebellion, felt it their duty to take up arms against the unprincipled (and often dishonest) agitators, and endeavor to crush out the spirit of revolt. And thus it came, that very many who had fought side by side at Ticonderoga, Crown Point, Duquesne, Niagara, Oswego, Frontenac, Montreal, and around Quebec, under a common flag, were now to be arrayed in hostile bands. Not state against state, nor yet merely neighbor against neighbor, but brother against brother, and father against son! Civil war, of all wars, is the most terrible: in addition to the horrors of the battle-field, there is an upheaving of the very foundation of society. All the feelings of brotherhood, of Christian love, are paralyzed, and the demon of destruction and cruelty is successfully invoked.

Behold, then, the British Americans divided into two parties; each buckling on the armor to protect from the other, and sharpening the weapons of warfare to encounter his kindred foe. The contest of 1776-‘83 is most generally looked upon as one between the English and Americans; but in reality it was, at first—​so far as fighting went—​between the conservative and rebel Americans. In an address to the king, presented by the loyalists in 1779, it is stated that the number of native Americans in his service exceeded those enlisted by Congress. Another address, in 1782, says that “there are more men in his Majesty’s provincial regiments than there is in the continental service.” Sabine says that “there were 25,000, at the lowest computation.” If such be the case, the question may well be asked, how came it that the rebels succeeded? Looking at the matter from our distant stand-point, through the light of events we find recorded, there seems but one conclusion at 65which we may arrive, namely, that the disaster to the British arms was due—​altogether due—​to the incapacity of certain of the generals to whom was intrusted the Imperial interests in America.

Among the officers who served with General Burgoyne was Sir John Johnson, who had been the first to suffer persecution, the first to become a refugee, and who became a principal pioneer in Upper Canada.

“His father, Sir William Johnson, was a native of Ireland, of whom it was said, in 1755, that he had long resided upon the Mohawk river, in the western part of New York, where he had acquired a considerable estate, and was universally beloved, not only by the inhabitants but also by the neighboring Indians, whose language he had learned and whose affections he had gained, by his humanity and affability. This led to his appointment as agent for Indian affairs, on the part of Great Britain, and he was said to be ‘the soul of all their transactions with the savages.’”

Of Sir William’s talents and shrewdness in dealing with the likewise shrewd Indian, the following is found in Sabine: “Allen relates that on his receiving from England some finely-laced clothes, the Mohawk chief became possessed with the desire of equalling the baronet in the splendor of his apparel, and, with a demure face, pretended to have dreamed that Sir William had presented him with a suit of the decorated garments. As the solemn hint could not be mistaken or avoided, the Indian monarch was gratified, and went away, highly pleased with the success of his device. But alas for Hendrick’s shortsighted sagacity! In a few days Sir William, in turn, had a dream, to the effect that the chief had given him several thousand acres of land. ‘The land is yours,’ said Hendrick, ‘but now, Sir William, I never dream with you again, you dream too hard for me.’”

68At the breaking out of the revolutionary war, Sir John, who had succeeded to his father’s title, appears, also, to have inherited his influence with the Indians, and to have exerted that influence to the utmost in favor of the Royal cause. By this means he rendered himself particularly obnoxious to the continentals, as the Americans were then called. Accordingly, in 1776, Colonel Dayton, with part of his regiment, was sent to arrest him, and thus put it out of his power to do further mischief. Receiving timely notice of this from his tory friends at Albany, he hastily assembled a large number of his tenants and others, and made preparations for a retreat, which he successfully accomplished.

This corps acted a very conspicuous part during the war. It was raised by Major Robert Rogers, of New Hampshire, son of James Rogers. He had served during the French war, with distinction, as commander of Rogers’ Rangers, and was, “in 1776, appointed Governor of Michilimackinac. During the early part of the rebellion he was in the revolting states, probably acting as a spy, and was in correspondence with the rebel Congress, and with Washington himself. He was imprisoned at New York, but was released on parole, which, it is said, he broke (like General Scott in 1812), and accepted the commission of colonel in the British army, and proceeded to raise the corps mentioned.” About 1777 “he went to England, and Simcoe succeeded him as commander of the Queen’s Rangers.”

Sabine, speaking of John Brown Lawrence, says he was imprisoned in the Burlington gaol, New Jersey, and that “Lieut.-Colonel John G. Simcoe, commander of the Queen’s Rangers, was a fellow-prisoner, 70and when exchanged said, at parting, ‘I shall never forget your kindness.’ He did not: and when appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, he invited Mr. Lawrence to settle there,” and, through the Governor, he acquired a large tract of land.

The Queen’s Rangers were disbanded in 1802, having been associated with the events of the first government of Upper Canada, their colonel (Simcoe) having been the first Governor. A detachment of this regiment were stationed upon the banks of the Don, before there was a single white inhabitant where now stands Toronto.

Op dinsdag 18 april 2017 20:44 schreef vaduz het volgende:This corps acted a very conspicuous part during the war. It was raised by Major Robert Rogers, of New Hampshire, son of James Rogers. He had served during the French war, with distinction, as commander of Rogers’ Rangers, and was, “in 1776, appointed Governor of Michilimackinac. During the early part of the rebellion he was in the revolting states, probably acting as a spy, and was in correspondence with the rebel Congress, and with Washington himself. He was imprisoned at New York, but was released on parole, which, it is said, he broke (like General Scott in 1812), and accepted the commission of colonel in the British army, and proceeded to raise the corps mentioned.” About 1777 “he went to England, and Simcoe succeeded him as commander of the Queen’s Rangers.”

Sabine, speaking of John Brown Lawrence, says he was imprisoned in the Burlington gaol, New Jersey, and that “Lieut.-Colonel John G. Simcoe, commander of the Queen’s Rangers, was a fellow-prisoner, 70and when exchanged said, at parting, ‘I shall never forget your kindness.’ He did not: and when appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, he invited Mr. Lawrence to settle there,” and, through the Governor, he acquired a large tract of land.

The Queen’s Rangers were disbanded in 1802, having been associated with the events of the first government of Upper Canada, their colonel (Simcoe) having been the first Governor. A detachment of this regiment were stationed upon the banks of the Don, before there was a single white inhabitant where now stands Toronto.